Search

Intentionality

You Can Choose to Manage Your Time Better or Not…it’s Up to You

by

Be Intentional About the Actions You Take to Fight Against the Time Monster

Last week I wrote about how we tend to make time management more complicated than it needs to be. Making things more difficult than needed is just human nature. Those of us that are self-employed seem to take this to a whole different level. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Like everything in life, we have choices. Time management is no different.

The three things that I said need to be used to successfully manage time were…

  • Intentionality
  • Prioritization
  • Spending time wisely

Today’s focus is INTENTIONALITY

Being intentional is a conscious design or purpose about your choices and actions. It is deciding what you’re going to do and doing it.

Why is it that we will be on time to meetings with other people, but not with ourselves?

If I have a day full of meetings and appointments, I will be on time to all of them. But if I fill my day with tasks and projects that don’t involve anyone but me, I’ll be running late shortly after getting started?

Think about it like this…Why is it that we can make it to the airport in plenty of time for our flight or not dare be late to our child’s wedding, but won’t set down and get to work on that project that needs to be worked on?

How we choose to spend our time is going to vary for each of us. What we spend it on is not the issue. Being intentional about it is.

The problem is not a lack of time, it’s a lack of control

This does not mean that it’s easy. There is a time monster that will eat up all your time if you let it. He will gobble it up as soon as it’s available and not leave anything but crumbs.

We have to intentionally confront this monster. Closing your eyes and putting your hands over your ears doesn’t make him any less real. He’s out there and he likes the taste of time.

The intentional, continuous, focus of small actions over time will bring the monster down. The process, known as the “snowball effect”, is the accumulation of small things added to small things until they become a big thing, like a snowball rolling down a hill.

An intentional snowball is the best weapon when dealing with a big hairy time monster.

It feels like there’s not enough time to do everything. I would argue that we’ve been given enough time to do everything we should. The problem is that we’re trying to do too much.

We’ve been given enough time to do everything we are supposed to. God built the world and everything in it in six days. We’ve been given those same six days to build our lives. Granted, building the world is a lot…we just need to remember that we’re not God.

God was intentional about what He was making. We need to treat our mission the same way.

You can do anything you want. You just can’t do everything you want.

Being aware of time and watching the clock also requires intentionality. Time is the most valuable commodity we have. You’ve heard the saying “time is money”. I would argue that time is MORE than money.

Money is a form of exchange for a service or product. We have some control over how fast our money goes…not so with time.

There is a limited amount of time.

Time is continually moving. There is no stopping or slowing it to get more done. If we spend a dollar, we can go make more. Once time is spent…there’s no getting any more.

Managing time requires intentionality. You can’t just wish it to happen. You have to decide to fight the monster and pick up the snowball.

Why Do We Make Managing Time as Complicated as Rocket Science?

by

When in Reality, It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three

I’ve shared before about some of the great discussions we have in our masterclass. This week’s was no different.

The question that got the gears in my head spinning was this –

When self-employed and working from home, how does one schedule time and determine boundaries?

Now, is this a great question or what. How does one do this?

When working from home it’s easy to be sidetracked by all the things that need done, like – yard work, gardening, vacuuming, washing the dishes, repair projects, laundry, changing the oil in the car, checking out social media, researching new and better computer programs, emailing old friends… You get the point! All the things on this list are worthwhile and important things that need to be done.

There were some great answers from of the group.

  • I work when my wife is gone to work. When she gets home, I stop working and spend time with her.
  • I have an office space that is only accessed by going through the garage, up some stairs and through the attic.
  • I start my day at 8:00 just as if I was going to an office.

The key to managing time is intentionality!

Having been self-employed for most of the past forty years I have a head start on most of the people in this group. But believe me I understand. I’ve struggled with this for years and just began to figure out over the past 8-10 years.

My figuring it out took a big step forward with a wakeup call from God. He got my attention with a board upside the head, literally. This incident persuaded me to step back and look at things differently. I got a more well-rounded, big picture view of life and it helped me to see things differently.

I’m a workaholic and love what I do. Now I look at my whole life, all the different aspects of it, as my employment. This a word that is typically connected to a job, but that’s not completely accurate. Being employed is – the active use of or engagement in services. Being engaged in activity. I see employment as more than just a job.

The freedom perceived as a part of self-employment is the one thing that most often prevents these ventures from succeeding.

One of the biggest issues with self-employment is lack of boundaries. It’s like kids when they first move out of their parent’s home. There’s a newfound freedom. Nobody is looking over their shoulder telling them to get up and go to class or to not stay out late so they can get up and go to work.

Most people have been raised with some kind of structure. Working for someone else is the same thing. When we become self-employed it’s like moving out for the first time. There’s no boss preventing me from washing the dishes or mowing the yard.

This new freedom leads to an uncertain, unclear understanding of what we should do, when we should do it and in what order.

There are three things that need to be present if you are going to be successful in self-employment. –

  • Intentionality – Be intentional about what you spend your time on. Why is it that we won’t be late to a meeting with other people, but will blow off meeting with ourselves? We’ve been given enough time to do everything we should…just not everything we want.
  • Prioritization – This one can be tough. What makes one thing more important than another. This is where being crystal on who you are, who you’re going to help and how you’re going to help them comes in.
  • Spending time wisely – Time is limited. It is the most valuable commodity you have. It’s up to you to decide how much you’re going to spend and what you’re going to spend it on.

The SELF in self-employment means “the buck stops here”. It’s up to me to manage my time…no one else. Our human nature is to make things more complicated than they are or need to be.

Managing time doesn’t have to be rocket science. Intentionally prioritizing how you spend your time is all it takes.

Check back, we will break these down more in the coming weeks.

How I Use My Calendar to be More Productive

by

Investing Your Time Intentionally Is the Key to Unlocking Productivity

There are as many different ways to use calendars as there are people. Not only that, but if you’re like me, the way we use them continues to change. Not to mention, that calendars themselves keep changing. They have gone from tracking days by scratching a mark in the wall of a cave to now being computerized.

Purpose driven people are constantly looking for ways to be more productive.

I don’t know if I’m going through a phase or if getting older is making me more aware of the limited time I have to spend. Either way my desire to be more productive is at an all-time high.

When scheduling things, it is important to be flexibly rigid. This is balancing the importance of planning with intentionality and the realization that life happens. Finding that balance is hard.

One of the benefits to a computer calendar is the ease with which things can be added, shared, moved or deleted…this is also a detriment. Over the past few years I realized that I was moving things on the calendar that I had scheduled with myself. I would schedule tasks for myself on the calendar and they would get pushed back and back and back again. Then I realized I wasn’t giving meetings with myself as much importance as those with others.

Then I realized the calendar is like any other tool. It doesn’t serve its purpose if it isn’t used properly.

The first thing with any tool is to determine what its purpose(s) is and use it accordingly.

  • Scheduling meetings – The most basic purpose of a calendar is for scheduling meetings. These may be recurring meeting or one-time meetings. Scheduling our tasks as meetings with ourselves and giving them equal importance is critical to productivity.

  • Reminder of things ahead – This could be meetings, events, actions, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

  • Budgeting time – Similar to money a calendar can work like a budget for time. When you start filling out the calendar there is a limit to how much space there is. When it gets filled up, you’re going to need to stop trying to spend more.

  • Prioritizing what you spend time on – Once the calendar is full and there are still things to put on it, you must decide what goes on and what comes off. This calls for a time triage

Determine what works best for you and use your calendar accordingly.

Some days I would accomplish almost everything on my list and then there were days where it felt like I hadn’t achieved hardly anything. As I began to study why that was, it became apparent that the most productive days were the ones that I had packed the calendar full, from beginning to end, even little things. The days that were less productive had more unscheduled and open time. I realized that when my day was scheduled so full that I didn’t think I could get it all done, I was focused and did much better at staying on task.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been scheduling my calendar full, to the point of some days being scheduled tight without any open space. In doing this I have noticed that I have been consistently more productive. This doesn’t mean that everything gets done, just that I’ve been more productive.

There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but this seems to be working.

I still need to work on being wiser about what I spend my time on. There’s limited time so we all need to be good stewards of the time we’ve been given. Being productive requires intentional action. Productivity seems like a big monster, but we can take him out if we’ll just start implementing small steps in the right direction.

The Importance of Intentionality for Building Your Dream Life

by

Because It Isn’t Going to Magically Build Itself

For years people have asked me where I came up with the business system and procedures that I use. As I thought about it, I realized that my business and life had been developing for years without much intentionality.

After my accident in 2012 it caused me to think about what my life was and what I had expected it to be. Not that my life was terrible before, it just wasn’t what I had envisioned it to be. I had been living without a clear plan and there was so much more that I wanted to accomplish.

At that point I decided to become more intentional. I’ve always been a planner but it’s sad that it took a hit in the head for me to realize the importance of being intentional about the plan.

When we’re young the tendency is to think that we’ll have all the time we need. There’s no hurry to plan for the future…we’ll get around to that someday. Then one day we wake up and realize life is flying by and we haven’t done all those things we wanted to.

 

You don’t have to wait until you’re smacked in the head to become intentional.

 

While explaining my business operating system to my team, it became evident that even though I now have an intentional plan, it needed to be written down. When working alone, I would just do the next thing that needed done. I didn’t need a written plan, so I thought. Not only do I need a written plan to communicate to my team, but it helps me to be clearer.

Think of your life or business as a construction project. It all begins with a dream. You can see the vision of the completed project in your mind. The tricky part is getting that dream out of your head and making it a reality? Having it drawn out will let you see if it looks like your dream or not. It’s better and easier to make changes and corrections during the planning, rather than the construction. It improves the clarity of communication between all parties involved.

It’s also a good idea to have the help of a professional when drawing out your plans or building your dream. Their experience, knowledge and skill, can save you time and money. Done well, it will make the entire process more enjoyable.

In last week’s post, it once again was reinforced how important intentional planning for the future is and how rarely it is done.

Having a clear picture of what it is that you want your life or business to look like when you’re finished building it, takes intentionality.

Be intentional.


Don’t wait to be smacked in the head to get intentional about planning for the future. Let me know what areas you need some help with planning or building the life or business of your dreams